This President Brought to You by Dunkin’ Donuts

Has anyone else noticed that Dunkin’ Donuts is getting almost as much free media this election cycle as any of the candidates?

It all started with Bill Clinton’s extremely well-documented love of Dunkin’ Donuts. Campaigning in New Hampshire last year, Hillary Clinton had “cooked up a Dunkin’ Donuts joke—in which she said, a few times, that Mr. Clinton had gained 20 pounds from his pit stops there, and that she would need voters’ help to keep off the pounds.” A supporter of Hillary’s even cited Bill’s Dunkin’ Donuts constancy as a reason for supporting her: “We know him and his foibles. We know he loves his Dunkin’ Donuts.” In the months that followed, that connection—see this photo of Hillary at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Concord, New Hampshire—metastasized into the most irritating shorthand of this campaign season: the latte liberals versus Dunkin’ Donuts Democrats divide.

Unwilling to cede the scrumptious Boston Kreme demographic, Obama fought back with a Potomac-primary-morning photo op at a DC location, where he picked up a few boxes of Dunkin’ Donuts for campaign volunteers (specific doughnuts unknown). Last week, campaign finance reports revealed that the Clinton campaign bought considerably more than a few boxes in January: In a single month, it spent $1,200 on Dunkin’ Donuts. It’s unclear how that compares to John McCain’s Dunkin’ Donuts expenditures, although the New Yorker reported that McCain’s bus always has “a galley stocked with Dunkin’ Donuts and Coke, the staples of the McCain diet.” Is this what “America Runs on Dunkin’” means? Do we not have the audacity to hope for a nation of neighborhood doughnut shops?